Went to change the plugs in my girlfriend's Ranger. Talk about shocked!! Just curious as to the reason or advantage behind this.

 

I'm pretty sure it's an emissions thing. It's not like the extra plug is gonna give you any more power.
Ford probably put it in there to make sure the combustion process is more complete.
I guess it works, every two years when I go for emissions testing, the fumes coming out of my tailpipe are cleaner than the air coming into the motor...
Usually the numbers are like .000134 in a test where the max allowable is 200.

 

the above mentioned cleaner combustion is indeed giving you more power as well.

DRew

 

I had a 1985 with the same size engine as the 1998 I have now.
The 85 was a DOG...hardly any power with no load,,incredible difference with the 98, Ford has really improved the truck in most ways.

 

Somewhere I read that one company (can't remember which) went the dual plug route and got 17 additional horsepower, presumably from better combustion. But if the engine were designed correctly in the first place, would they need two plugs. I see the new Ford four cylinder does not have two plugs per cylinder.

INLINE SIX POWER! '95 F150 XL
300 Cubic Inches of Low RPM Truck Torque! And twin-I-beams too!
"Drive a stick young man! There'll be time for automatics when you're old and unable."

 

uh..i think it burns the gas more effeciantly? im pretty sure thats the case, in my truck before my car (83 nissan king cab) it had 6 i believe, and my uncle said it helped with gas mileage

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 20-Oct-02 AT 02:53 AM (EST)]I drive one of these Ford four-banger Rangers for work sometimes, so I thought I'd check out the forum here.

I've owned a Nissan car that had the same design, and I've heard of others.

I guess my input would only be that beyond centering a sparkplug on/in a cylinder, is there ever a correct way to do one spark plug? I guess that depending on the intake valves and the combustion chamber design, spark plugs could be offset a little bit for optimum results, but I have to wonder if the amount of engines with spark plugs coming in from the side of the heads really wouldn't benefit from a second spark plug for each cylinder?

To me, at least, the only nearly 'correct' design of a single spark plug is a Hemi-head. Toyota, Honda, and Chrysler have used them, as others probably have, but it's still a rare occurance.

I'm guessing that standard lower-cammed, and SOHC, engines have heads that don't allow the centering of a single spark plug in the Hemi-style very easily, so that's why we see the dual spak plugs on those engines. I haven't looked, but I would bet a lot of the 4-cylinder centered single spark plug designs are dual overhead cams these days.

Hmm, now that I think about it, Honda made, or makes, single cylinder four stroke motorcycle engines with two spark plugs. Given their reputation for making motorcycle engines (or any engines for that matter), I'd say they probably think they're doing something beneficial as opposed to trying to get around a bad head design.

Not sure what I'm getting at here, but I like the idea of two spark plugs per cylinder

I've got to say that this little Ford (is it a Mazda engine?) Ranger is running better (with more miles on it, too) than all of the S-10's we have that have over 100k miles. (Holy-geez S-10 four cylinders and transmissions are crap...)

Best,

 

Yeah, basically everyone put together has it right. You've got spark on the intake side and exhaust side of the engine which in turn provided a little more horse power and better fuel efficiency by burning the air and fuel better. Also, should not that you're not picking up all the power and fuel efficiency from just the plugs. Its in the entire process including the exhaust. Too long to explain so will leave it at that. Also as indicated the new 2.3L does not have 8 plugs/wires, it only has 4. Well the engine with 8 plugs/wires is only a SOHC where the new one with 4 is a DOHC. The DOHC is a great improvement because it once again provides a little more HP and fuel efficiency. Now just think if they did 8 plugs on the DOHC...would be cool but at that point wouldn't gain too much more but a tiny bit. I know this is late but I hope it helps. Have a great day all.

 

I think they fire at slightly different times, hence the two distributors. Early Mazda Wankle engines had two plugs per rotor and they were referred to as "sacvenger" plugs. They spak a millisecond or two after the first plug to ensure a complete burn. At least that's what I remember reading in the specs. I guess this is sort of along the same lines.

 

 

When the sparkplug ignites the fuel, the flame front starts at that point and depending on several factors moves at a certain speed to eventually engulf almost all of the fuel. When you have two sparkplugs you have two points of ignitoin that have a better chance of burning all of the fuel.

 

One more thing the plugs usually have different ratings on each side.

 

To drive those of us who work on our own trucks just that much crazier.

 

also note the lack of miles and miles of emissions as apposed to the other guys

 

My 96 ranger has 8 plugs and I'm only getting about 20miles to the gallon. I just bought it. Any reason for this?